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SF: After the Downfall

“After the Downfall” is a book from Harry Turtledove. In a nutshell, during the last days of WWII, in Berlin, a German sub-officer is magically transferred to a feudal-magical world. There he saves a goddess and joins a war between a supposedly superior blond nation and a supposedly inferior dark small slave nation. Of course, he starts the war with the Aryan-like nation. But the things are not as simple as they look.

The book is an excuse to be a lesson about tolerance, that we are too often judging people from their appearance, that our opinion is biased by our environment. Of course, the conclusion is going in the right direction.

Nevertheless, the story is simple and you will quickly guess the optimist ending. The most interesting part of the book is the evolving point of view of a German soldier that starts to look back to the Russian campaign with a more open sight. The book is an advocacy against racism. But there a re far better SF books on this topic with better story, for instance Ursula Le Guin’s “the dispossessed.”

I do not recommend this book 🙁 . Turtledove seems a very prolific author. He won a Hugo award. If one of my reader did read a Turtledove’s book that he/she appreciated, please recommend it to me ❓ . Thanks.